Stevenage boss looking for improvement ahead of Scunthorpe United this Saturday

GRAHAM Westley says his side is losing ‘by margins’ after seeing his team beaten by a single goal at Carlisle at the weekend.

Peter Murphy was the scorer of the game’s only goal - a header at the far post after Stevenage had failed to successfully clear a corner - and Westley says he was disappointed to see his men concede in that fashion after they had put in specific work on the training ground to pick up seconds from set pieces.

“I think one of the important things for everybody to realise is that when you jump up a level – you saw it last year – sides are a little bit stronger, a little bit quicker, a little bit better organised, have a little bit more tactical ability, a little more technical ability, and individuals and a team can take a little time to adjust,” Westley said.

“We’ve had one or two great performances which people get carried away with and one or two difficulties. It’s unlike us to go back-to-back defeats and we’ve done that. We’re not getting beaten heavily but we’re just getting edged out. We can all remember back to Wycombe coming to us last year and thinking ‘blimey, we’re in a new league’ and the same happened today where there’s only margins that beat us and we lost the game.

“[The goal] is the second we’ve conceded in the space of eight days from the seconds at a set play where a man marker has just been let go and has got off the back of the fella who was supposed to be picking him up.

“Of course it was disappointing to concede that way especially after doing some work on it midweek.”